Ann Brashares Quotes

Don’t panic, I thought. But already my breathing was faster, shallower. “You mean you can feel happy or sad or—” “Desire.” A barely-there smile.

You can't just switch off your feelings because the other person did.

You can feel an emotion; just don't think that it's so important.

When you allow what someone says or does to upset you, you're allowing them to control you.

The basic premise that children must learn about emotions is that all feelings are okay to have; however, only some reactions are okay.

Emotions are products of our mind, and we can actually train ourselves to choose whether we banish or embrace them.

Mostly in life people are trying not to have emotions.

How do I control my emotions? How do I stop getting angry so often, or how do I stop being sad? And I think there's a really important distinction to understand is that you can't completely control your emotions. What you control is your reaction to your own emotions. And a lot of people don't ever make that separation for what goes on with them.

I listen to my emotions. That's why I react once I get provoked sometimes.

I don't react and think off emotions - that gets you in a bad situation.

I have never been offended. I don't know what it means. It's not that I disagree with it. I don't understand it. I've never had that feeling. I don't let feelings control my life. I'm more disciplined than other people.

The problem is not what other people think, do or say; it is your reaction.

Your thoughts cause your feelings.

We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.

I'm now much more aware of my mental state. I have a lot more control over it and can choose how I feel.

Anger is just anger. It isn't good. It isn't bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It's like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice.

Emotion, whether of ridicule, anger, or sorrow,--whether raised at a puppet show, a funeral, or a battle,--is your grandest of levellers. The man who would be always superior should be always apathetic.

Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism.

All of us live at the feeling level, and our feelings are in large part a result of the way we perceive things. You observe or are told something, you interpret it, and only then do you have a reaction at the feeling level. The point is that feeling is preceded by perception, and all of us are capable of controlling our interpretation [the associations and assumptions] of what we see. If we can control our interpretation, then it logically follows that we can exercise some control over our feelings as well.

I am not minimizing emotions. Emotions are an important part of life.

Our brain is the factory of the emotions

All that you really want in life is to change how you feel. Again, all your emotions are nothing but biochemical storms in your brain, and you are in control of them at any moment in time. You can feel ecstasy right now, or you can feel pain or depression or overwhelmed - it's all up to you. You don't need drugs or anything else to do it.

This is not to say I don’t feel my own grief, which can hit powerfully at unexpected times. It’s just that the telling does not automatically bring on my own upset, as people assume. I deal more with their reaction than they do with mine, and so you have to choose your timing.

Ninety percent of our lives is governed by emotion. Our brains merely register and act upon what is telegraphed to them by our bodily experience. Intellect is to emotion as our clothes are to our bodies; we could not very well have civilized life without clothes, but we would be in a poor way if we had only clothes without bodies.